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Re: Tenses
Like Carl, I'm not quite sure what is meant by the last question. Do you
mean words like oida?
The meaning of oida is often given as `I know' with some note to the
effect that the perfect really means the present and the pluperfect the
aorist.
I appreciate that there could be a historical argument against what I'm
about to say, but it occurs to me as a (student) linguist that there is no
need to treat the stem as having irregular tense meaning. Rather than
treating the word as meaning `I know' why not `I come to know'. Quite
clearly:-
1) I have come to know (perfect) = I know (present)
2) I had come to know (pluperfect) = I knew (aorist)
In light of this possibility, I have three questions:
1) What is the actual stem (if oida is the perfect)?
2) Does it *ever* occur other than in the perfect and pluperfect?
3) Is there an argument against what I've just said?
Just thought I'd add to the discussion---keep things going. I hope my
fellow West Australian, Tim Finney gets lots of responses to his
excellent papyri query :-)
James K. Tauber, Undergraduate Student ``Perplexed but not
Centre for Linguistics, UWA, Australia despairing''
E-mail: jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au - Paul (2 Cor 4.8)
WWW: ftp://tartarus.uwa.edu.au/pub/jtauber/main.html